The present invention relates to purification of sugarcane juices.
Broadly speaking, the manufacture of sugar from sugarcane consists of crushing the cane to extract its juices; clarifying the juice by liming with substantial amounts of lime or lime and magnesia and then heating and filtering the juice; evaporating the juice; and crystallizing and refining the raw sugar (by a complicated treatment). However, the last step is lengthy and expensive, since it requires a redissolving of the raw sugar and results in large losses of sucrose.
It has been proposed to treat sugar juices by ion-exchange resins. However, these techniques are limited to the demineralization of the juice (followed or preceded by bleaching) or the ion-exchange step is used to lime. Additionally, ion-exchange resins may be rapidly inactivated because of difficulties in regeneration. None of these processes makes it possible to extract and recover the amino acids and aconitic acid.